Here in the Forest, Dark and Deep (We Offer You Eternal Sleep)
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: Harry is working at the Ministry dealing with a series of killings on elderly wizards. When Hermione discovers a pattern, he gets unexpected help from Rolf Scamander to get to the root of the attacks. QLFC Round 1.


**A.N:** Thank you Ari, Laura and Jasmin for beta-ing! Prompts are at the bottom.

* * *

 _ **here in the forest, dark and deep (we offer you eternal sleep)**_

* * *

Harry Potter rubbed the bridge of his nose as he pushed away another manilla file. He was fed up of having these 'top secret' folders shoved onto his office desk, filled with the same haunting, harrowing images.

Wizards and witches, mostly in their twilight years, found dead in their homes. Always alone, wearing only the remaining shreds of their flesh. While most of their skin had been ripped from the bone, the faces always remained, and their tortured expressions were beginning to plague Harry's dreams.

There had been four incidents so far, and he was no closer to finding out what the correlation between the killings was, other than that they were all employees of the Ministry of Magic, and the deaths seemed to be caused by a creature rather than a human, judging by the teeth marks on the bodies.

So far, it was just another file to add to the growing list.

"Harry!" a familiar, flustered voice distracted him suddenly, and he looked up to the doorway. Hermione Granger was standing there, clutching a sheaf of parchment and looking as though she had run the length of the Department to get to his office. "I've worked it out."

"What?"

Hermione sat on the other side of Harry's desk and spread out the parchment in front of him. It was a circular drawing, with dozens of little squares making up the large circle. "It's the Wizengamot," Hermione explained, running her finger along the squares. Each square had a name written inside. "These are all the witches and wizards on the council that have been on the council for the last five years. There's been no change since then."

"Where are you going with this?" asked Harry.

Hermione grabbed a pencil from Harry's desk and circled four squares in a row, starting from the far left of the page. "Recognise these names?"

Harry leaned in and squinted. _"Merlin_ , Hermione. You're brilliant." The names, in order from left to right, were the witches and wizards who had been killed.

"There's more," Hermione continued. "These people were killed on the fifth day of every week, on the twenty-second hour of the day." She looked at her watch. "I think I know who's going to be attacked next, and I think we can catch them."

oOo

By ten o'clock that same night, Harry and Hermione were stationed in the house of Horace Walton, the next member of the Wizengamot on Hermione's list. They had asked the elderly wizard to bed as he normally would, while they stood in the foyer downstairs, watching the door.

There was no reason for the attacker—who or whatever it was—would expect them to be there. Harry was confident they would have the upper hand in the situation.

Hermione glanced at her watch and held her wand a little higher. "It's ten," she whispered to Harry. They both glared pointedly at the door, waiting for the inevitable.

"HELP!" a sudden scream tore through the entire house. Harry and Hermione spun around where they stood, turning to race up the stairs to the source of the noise.

Harry reached the bedroom first. The window was shattered and glass was littered across the floor, but at first it didn't seem as though anyone else was in the bedroom. Horace Walton was cowering on his bed, pointing at the window.

It looked like a curtain—a very tattered, ripped black curtain, halfway through the shattered glass. It was about an inch thick and a couple of metres tall, and was stretching ethereally towards Horace.

" _Expecto Patronum!"_ Harry yelled, flicking his wand in the direction of the creature. His patronus sprung from the tip of his wand, galloping determinedly towards it. With a strange, piercing shriek, the creature seemed to dematerialise and materialise around the patronus—but it was considerably weakened. Before Harry or Hermione could decide how to next act, it melted out of the shattered window, vanishing into the night.

"Good thinking," gasped Hermione, before hurrying over to check on Horace. "What made you think of a patronus charm?"

"I'm not sure," Harry replied. "When I realised it wasn't a curtain, my first thought was that it was a Dementor."

"We need to get back to the Ministry and act quickly," Hermione said. "What do you suggest we do?"

"Like you said, these creatures are attacking the Wizengamot members," Harry replied. "So, we need to get them all to safety. Can you arrange for them to be put into protective custody in the Ministry?"

Hermione nodded.

"Do you have any idea at all what that thing could be?" Harry continued, looking at Hermione desperately.

"It seems familiar, but I can't think where I might have read about the creature before," Hermione answered. "You were right to think it looked like a Dementor—that was my initial thought, too. But it was too...intangible. There was no shape, no definition."

"When we get back to the Ministry, I'll go straight to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," Harry said. "There'll be someone there who knows what we're dealing with."

oOo

By the following morning, Harry was waiting at the Department bright and early.

"All I'm asking is that you can find someone to check the files for this...curtain thing," Harry explained to the receptionist, visibly exasperated. "It was big, it was all shredded and ripped and dark. Like a ripped, shredded shadow. Are you telling me you've never heard of anything like this?"

The receptionist was clearly young and quite new, and probably didn't know much about magical creatures at all. "I'm sorry," she babbled, noticeably flustered. "If you could just come back in a few hours, there'll be someone around who can take a report…"

"Hey, Potter. How about you give her a break?"

Harry turned around to the small waiting area. A familiar man was sat in reception, with mousey hair and sleepy, grey eyes. He was slouched on a bench with a book in his hand.

"Rolf. Rolf Scamander?" Harry walked over to Rolf and shook his hand politely. "It's been quite a few years since I saw you."

"Your wedding to Ginny, actually," Rolf replied. "I was still seeing Luna, then." His eyes dulled momentarily as he mentioned Luna.

"You don't see her much these days?"

"Not as much as I used to," said Rolf. "How about you?"

"I don't think I've seen her since her father died."

Harry and Rolf stood in silence for a few moments, and then Rolf straightened up. "I heard you talking about Lethifolds?"

Harry furrowed his brow, and Rolf gestured for him to sit down on the bench beside him. He opened up his book— _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ —to a new page, and showed Harry the image. Rolf explained that, like Dementors, Lethifolds were non-beings, and very rare creatures.

"That explains why even Hermione didn't recognise it straight away," Harry murmured. "But why would they attack like this?"

Rolf slouched back, looking bewildered. "That's what I don't understand. Lethifolds have never been controlled by humans. They are truly wild beasts, and attack randomly, not systematically. And besides—they're native to tropical lands. I don't think there's ever _been_ one in Britain before. They prefer warmer climates."

"So, someone is controlling these things?"

Rolf shrugged. "It would seem so. There's no other explanation as to why they would act so...structured."

"How do you know so much about these things, anyway?" Harry queried.

"Luna and I took a trip to South America shortly after we graduated from Hogwarts," continued Rolf. "We found a large nest of them in a series of caves in the Amazon rainforest. Luna was particularly intrigued by them. She was determined to find a way to communicate with the Lethifolds, and she refused to move on from them for quite a while." His face paled considerably as he discussed this memory.

"Rolf...are you feeling alright?"

Rolf stood up so quickly he knocked his book onto the floor. "I have an idea. I think you need to come with me."

oOo

Once Harry and Rolf had left the Ministry, Rolf apparated them to a forested location. It was raining heavily, and the mouth of a cave loomed in front of them. "Where are we?"

"The northern Scottish coast," Rolf replied. "This cave has natural magical properties. If there was ever a place to hide Lethifolds, this would be it."

"How do you know about this place?" asked Harry.

"It was detailed in some of my grandfather's notes," Rolf said. "I brought Luna here."

Harry took a breath, and removed his wand from his sleeve. "Okay. I'll go in first. If you hear anything, feel free to contact the Auror office for assistance."

Rolf rolled his eyes. "Luna always did talk about how noble and heroic you were. I'm coming in there with you—if anyone has a chance against one of those things, it's me. I've studied them."

"Not to be rude or anything, but I already defeated one last night."

" _One._ We have no idea how many of them might be in there."

Harry sighed. "Fine. But stay behind me." Harry began to lead the way, stepping out of the rain and into the mouth of the cave. Almost as soon as they began to enter the darkness, Harry tripped over something, and plunged down into a ditch that was filled with a sticky, thick substance.

Rolf pulled Harry out of the ditch. "Yikes. That's…"

Harry looked down at his clothes and grimaced. He was covered in blood. "Never mind. Let's keep going."

They continued on through the cave, until it was so dark that Harry and Rolf were both forced to light the tips of their wand just to navigate through the tunnel. After about ten minutes of walking, they came to a large, circular clearing, marked only by a series of stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

On the furthermost edge of the clearing, a pale, naked woman stood, facing the wall. As Harry and Rolf drew closer to her, Harry noticed that she was dipping her fingers into a wooden bowl and painting with the substance onto the stone wall, coating it with long, reddish-purple stripes.

"Hello, Harry Potter." The voice was familiar—too familiar. "All that blood looks good on you. It brings out your eyes." She turned around, smiling brightly at her intruders.

Luna Lovegood didn't look anything like she used to. Her matted hair was longer than Harry had ever seen it, and almost white in colour. She was as thin as a rake, her ribs visible through her almost translucent skin. Her silver eyes were bulbous in her hollow face, and she had the same red paint under her eyes and around her lips.

"Merlin, Luna," Rolf rushed forward, pulling his jacket off his shoulders as he moved. He tried to wrap it around Luna's bare body, but she batted it harshly out of his hands. The shadows at the edges of the cave seemed to rustle with her apparent distress.

"You knew she would be here?" Harry hissed to Rolf. "You knew it was Luna?"

"No," Rolf's voice was pained. "I...I had a hunch, when we were discussing the Lethifolds. I didn't...I hoped…" Rolf looked up at Luna, watching as she walked closer to Harry. "I never knew of anyone who tried so hard to communicate with them. She's the only one who could learn to control them."

" _Control?"_ Luna scoffed, her voice eerily high-pitched. "I didn't think you were so narrow-minded, Rolf. They are not creatures that can be controlled."

"What happened?" Harry asked quietly. "What happened to you?"

Her eyes burned coldly into Harry. "I learned to understand them. And they learned to understand _me_ , when I most needed someone, when I was at the lowest point of my life," she paused for a moment before continuing. "When my father died in Azkaban."

Harry's stomach sank. "Luna…"

She stopped when she was right in front of Harry. "They put him into Azkaban because he tried to hand you over to Voldemort," she explained. "You _knew_ that. You knew why he did it. You knew they were just the actions of a desperate father trying to reunite with his daughter."

"Luna," Harry croaked.

"They asked you to be a witness in the Wizengamot for his case and you wouldn't even make your case," Luna continued. "So they made up their own minds. Xenophilius Lovegood, guilty of historical war crimes for trying to give up the great Harry Potter to Voldemort."

"I didn't expect them to sentence him," Harry whispered. "He was an old man. He didn't really commit a serious crime—"

"When he died," Luna went on. "These Lethifolds sought me out. I thought that my attempts to communicate with them in South America had failed, but when I was desperate to connect with someone, _anyone_ —they came to me."

She started to walk a circle around Harry, as though she was advancing on her prey.

"They feel grief and misery, so much more than humans. They have a deeper understanding of the pain. No one knows that, because no one has tried to understand them before. Everyone just saw the flesh eating, evil creatures that sneak through windows to make their mark."

Harry glanced at Rolf over Luna's shoulder. He seemed frozen to the spot, his eyes flickering to the shadows that were growing at the edges of the cave.

"They became _loyal_ to me, Harry Potter. The kind of true loyalty that you couldn't understand, but I really thought you did. These beautiful creatures accepted me as their leader, and promised to do everything in their power to help me get justice for my father."

"Murdering the Wizengamot council is not _justice_ ," Harry replied.

"Perhaps not," Luna stopped her circling, standing still behind Harry. "But it's making me feel better."

The shadows were growing larger now. Rolf's wand light flickered out first, then Harry's died quickly after.

"I'm not finished with my vengeance, Harry," Luna's voice was barely a whisper, her breath hot on the back of his neck. "I didn't want my Lethifolds to harm anyone I loved. But I need to finish my work, and you're going to stand in my way."

Harry watched as the black shapes evolved from shadows into real, visible apparitions. It wasn't just one, like the Lethifold from the previous night—it was dozens, crawling from the corners of the cave, seeping from the stalactites above, rising from the ground below Harry's feet, surrounding them in velvety, suffocating darkness.

" _Expecto Patronum!"_

The shout came from somewhere behind Harry. It wasn't just one shout, either—it was a chorus of voices, all conjuring patronuses of different forms. The pearlescent animals galloped and scurried and flew forwards towards the Lethifolds, crashing through them until they melted back into the walls of the cave again, leaving Luna alone.

Hermione strolled into the cave, followed by dozens of Aurors and witches and wizards from the Magical Creatures Department. _"Incarcerous!"_ she shouted, directing her wand at Luna. Before Luna could react, a stream of magically enforced ropes spat from the end of Hermione's wand and secured themselves firmly around Luna's body.

"Hermione," gasped Harry. "How did you know I was here?"

"You should know by now that I'm keeping tabs on you," Hermione grinned. "Especially when I get the feeling you're going to do something stupid and heroic."

Harry smiled, and let Hermione wander past him so she could check on Rolf. He looked down at Luna, who was silent and staring straight ahead. "I'm sorry about what happened to your father. Really, I am." When Luna didn't reply, Harry sighed. "I wish I could have been there for you."

The Aurors moved in quickly to take Luna out of the cave, leaving Harry with Hermione, Rolf, and the Magical Creature specialists. "What's going to happen now?" Rolf asked, looking between Harry and Hermione.

"The specialists will work to capture the remaining Lethifolds from the cave," Hermione said breezily. "And Luna will be put on trial at the Wizengamot."

Rolf nodded, and Harry put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Rolf."

"I really believe Luna will come out of this," Hermione added. "She's strong. She'll do her time in Azkaban, and maybe she'll understand...what she did was…"

Rolf looked away and rubbed the back of his head. "Thanks, you guys."

Harry and Hermione watched as Rolf walked away to join the rest of the specialists. "We'll have to be here for him, now," Hermione said quietly. "And we'll have to be here for Luna."

"Yeah. For Luna."

* * *

 **Written For:**

QLFC Round 1/Keeper Position: Write about a magical creature you've never written before (Lethifold).

Assignment #10/Women's History Task #1: Write about a strong female leader.

Cooking Club Ingredients: Almonds - (character) Luna Lovegood, (action) painting

Writing Club/Character Appreciation: (trait) Loyal

Writing Club/Disney Challenge: Losing a Parent - Write about a character losing a parent

Writing Club/Showtime: On My Own - (weather) Rainy

Writing Club/Emy's Emporium: The Empire - Write about a powerful man/woman or organisation

365 Prompts: (dialogue) "All that blood looks good on you. It brings out your eyes."

 **Word Count:** 2,770


End file.
